Tuesday, March 24, 2009

More cuts announced

Additionally, administrative staff positions at the district level nationwide are being reduced by 15 percent.

And more than 1,400 mail processing supervisor and management positions at nearly 400 facilities around the country also are being eliminated and nearly 150,000 employees nationwide are being given the opportunity to take an early retirement.

It's sad that we have to cut -- but we are talking about our survival with a crushing $6 billion projected loss looming.

What do you think about these latest cuts? Let me know by clicking here.

17 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This is a good start but we need to look at what happens with the workload performed by those positions. Someone needs to take a real hard look, perhaps an external view, at the work that is being performed in each of the positions that are eliminated and see if it is really necessary. Often these jobs are created or additional duties are added to simply “micromanage” tasks established by a higher level. If they reduce the staffing at district, the workload still needs to stay at district and force them to reevaluate the tasks and decide what is possible and what is necessary. Every office can quickly identify tasks that we perform that have no real value! Far too often their work is simply passed down to the local postmasters who are already overloaded. If we remove one 40 hour job and we simply pass those 40 hours down to the PM’s, and that increases the PM’s weekly hours, where is the real savings?

I don't know exactly about the job of MDO's and Higher Managers but I know the work load of a Supervisor P&DC.TACS, ERMS, MPES, PayAdjustments,attendence control issues,Discipline, Union issues,safty issue, Accident reports, Follow up with reapeters, Quarterly safetyreport,service/Safety talks, Check E-mail, Reply E-mails,Distribute pay checks,Check mail box in Managers office,Weekly schedule, Daily rotation,Holiday schedule,Weekly overtime Desire list, Quarterly OTDL,Pay for performance (Set objectives,goals and report achivements)This is just the paper,computer or clerical work they do other than run floor.If they are cutting jobs how can a SDO will take more work, he is already overloaded though.

You list the # of positions that are being eliminated, but in management you list the %. What is the actual number in management. Also what is the dollar amount of management that is being eliminated, and the dollar amount of the other positions? Expecting all the worker bees to handle more and more work and being pushed to work faster doesn't make dollar sense, only dangerous to employees and poor customer service.

No question that there have to be changes, and we have been waiting for the announcement. However, it is disquieting that we do not know which positions are being eliminated. I rather wish they had waited until they could have provided ALL of the information. As it is, we are still anxiously waiting to hear the other shoe drop.

I hope every postal employee will contact their Congressional representative in the house and ask them to co-sponsor HR 22. That would help the postal service by lowering the amount we pre-pay into the retirement health fund per year. Since it asks for no tax funds, it is a win-win situation!

When is the post office going to stop playing the numbers game and start playing the money game. We've saved all these workhours from the year before, but how did we do that? Well, we stopped bringing in OTDL, but then we improperly mandate so that grievances will be filed so that all the OTDL at home that day will get paid, the OTDL who aren't fully utilized that day will get more money, as well as the people who shouldn't have been mandated. How does this save money? And why did they do this you might ask? To have everyone back by 5pm. Other than EXFC scores what does this really matter. Who's bonus is affected by this? It sure as heck isn't the carriers or other crafts. What are we AIG? We're expecting a $6 billion loss and the execs think they deserve a bonus?!?! You gotta be kidding me. Management in general needs to wake up and start running this like a business and start thinking about the bottom line, not their numbers or their bonus! Oh yeah...and support HR 22!

In 2 weeks USPS kicks a money making restaurant out of the DC post office. They're giving that space to Smithsonian RENT FREE. Half a million in rent given up so we can look at stamps instead of have jobs.

They have commented that they have eliminated 15% of management positions. The positions they eliminated at the facility I work at are not filled at this time anyway. How does it save money to eliminate empty positions? It looks like the same old shell game, moving people around in management, new titles usually involving an increase in pay, and no real decrease in size of management. The only real elimination is in clerk and mail handler positions, the people who actually move the mail.

I think HRSSC (Human Resources Shared Services) was a major mistake. Jobs locally could have been eliminated and some kept - the new systems are back in the dark ages, going back to manual processes as opposed to automated..I just dont get it. Furthermore, the HRSSC staff is not postal educated or user friendly!

Can someone tell me how we're improving customer service by reducing the number of people who provide the customer service? And does anyone think the customer will get the same service and attitude from a PMR that replaces a PTF clerk? Once the PMR realizes they are doing the same job for LESS than 1/2 the pay and NONE of the benefits, will they give you the same effort?----just wondering--

how can to PO justify having one maintenance manager for 6 people? another way to save money is if a person request to be an OIC other than his/her office why should the PO have to pay that person miliage and whatever else they may receive, they ask for it.

Is it really saving Postal $$$ to eliminate pretty much all overtime just to have those bonuses for hours saved given to management? In the meanwhile, preventative machine maintenance has all but been brought to a screeching halt due to open positions not getting filled for month after month... Yeah I know that bearing is going bad, but we have to keep running until it completely seizes, can't afford to delay the mail, oh by the way there is no one scheduled for dayshift to fix it either. Well time for me to walk out knowing there are serious problems, I'm not authorized to work overtime, nor am I allowed to even stay here to fix it on my own time, that is against labor laws. I know I am not alone in this situation. Granted I am talking strictly from a maintenance standpoint, but I just don't see any excess personnel and I surely don't see how you can deny first level managers the flexibility to make informed decisions on when to use overtime. It appears to be yet another "blanket policy" that really is weakening the way we do business. If our goal is customer service, how many customers do you think really enjoy receiving their mail in a "we applogize our machine ate your mail because it's not getting proper maintenance" bag? The "pay for performance" for EAS employees in my opinion is just a way for upper management to reward middle management on how well they overload the people in the trenches. How about they stop the "pay for performance" bonuses and use that money to allow those who perform the work to do so...

Save money by making sure those on comp are really injured.Get rid of the dead wood in plants & elsewhere ( no goofing off/sleeping in trucks)and no recourse to Unions contradicting a physicians diagnosis ( and get three anonymous doctors opinions). Our medical legacy costs are the biggest drain on our cash flow.